EDITORIAL: Himalayan blunders by Sunita Narain ==================================== The floods in the Himalayas have been ferocious and deadly. Fears are that the final body count could run into several thousands. There is no clear estimate of the number of villages wiped out, property destroyed, roads washed away and hydropower projects damaged in the mountain state of Uttarakhand. The mountains are bleeding and its people have been left battered, bruised and dead. We know that the Himalayas are the world’s youngest mountain range, prone to landslide and flash floods. But what we do not easily comprehend is that two factors have made the already vulnerable region more hazardous. One, climate change-related extreme weather events; Indian monsoon has become more intense. Studies show extreme rain events are becoming more frequent as compared to moderate rain events. Rainfall is also becoming variable and unseasonal. This is what happened in Uttarakhand on that fateful June 16. It rained without a break; some 200 mm came down within hours at a few places like Kedarnath. It brought down the mighty Himalayas. Rain was also unseasonal. June is still not considered the beginning of the monsoon season, so pilgrims and tourists thronging the region were caught unawares. What really compounded the disaster—made it truly man-made—is the scale of development intervention in the past decade or so. This Himalayan region has seen unchecked construction activity, illegal and legal mining, unscientific road building and, of course, hydropower projects built next to each other. In Kedarnath large-scale construction has been done on the land evacuated by glacier in the past few years. It is small wonder that the water, moraine and stones came crashing down and took all with it. Many human lives were lost that morning and families shattered. This is the deadly and painful cost of environmental mismanagement.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 11:44:26 +0000